Los Angeles daily herald., 1887-08-26
PECULIARITIEs OF DIET.
strange Articles OF Food Inas
arc Eaten with q Relish.

strange Articles Of Food Thas
are Eaten with q Relish.
The Australasian is rather odd in
the matter of dietetics. A New Hol-
lander has been known to dispose OF
more than hundred vaulting rats at
one repast, swallowing them for the
most part with some of the hair still
upon them, holding them by the tails
and biting the bodies off with his
teeth. Not to be wasteful he alter
ward disposed Of the tails. The same
innocent children of nature affect stale
shark, rancid whale blubber, earth
worms and such trifies. Kangaroo
tail is dish an Australian finds much
flavor in. 1t is delicious. The natives
highly esteem the silent but wild
dingo, neither do they turn up their
noses at rats, but gluttony is allied to
rudeness. The black fellow, when at
meals, devours all he can, only now
and then finging morsel over his
shoulders to his wife and children.
He is likewise improvident, for he
seeks food only when he Graves it,
gorges to the last possible tension of
his dirty, black skin, and then sleeps
for several days and nights consecu-
lively.
In South America the Ottomacs
largely subsist on a fat and ferrugin-
ous kind of clay, each man eating a
pound or more daily. The Indians of
the Amazon eat kind of loan, pre-
ferring it to other and decidedly better
food. The Peruvians are also clay
eaters, their mess being mixture OF
tale and mica-rather tough food even
for Peru. Other nations are earth
eaters-the inhabitants of New
Guinea, some of the Bolivians, the
negroes of Jamaica and the natives of
New Caledonia, as well as many peo-
Me who dwell in Siam, Siberia and
kamschatka. The Ottomacs, how
ever, are the only ones who subsist on
clay when other food is obtainable.
An Esquimaux will eat twenty
pounds of meat per diem, lubricating
the mass with as much oil rs he can
swallow; yet Tongonee will go him
twenty pounds better, for he can get
away with forty pounds of reindeer
meat in the same space of time. Both
Of them blush for their feeble powers
when they see three Yakutes demol-
ish a whole reindeer at one sitting,
and rise apparently none the worse
for the feed.
At the Falkland islands a gourmet
can enjoy a new sensation by eating a
sea lions tongue. 1t is excellent, but
4 H. Tr,,,1a1 v<~.1oe
itself on alligator and turtle eggs. The
best place, however, for everything
relating to turtle is the isle of Ascen-
sion. There they are bred, fed, and
from there exported.
When the natives of the West Indies
are regarded from dietetic stand
point, baked snakes glide into the
menu along with palm worms "a fin
ger long, fried in their own fat. Yet
these colored gourmands cannot abide
. rabbit stew! Rats are there also
considered nice side dish, with occa-
sional relishes of gecana eggs and
palm tree snout beetles.
In Siam the dried sinews of various
animals form dish much liked. AL
hgators' eggs are eaten in many East
arn countries, and nastier dish it
would be hard to imagine. Ants enter
aargely into Oriental bills of fare, and
in Ceylon the busy bee is masticated
by the very men who have profted by
the honey it has made.
In Africa such trifes as blue mole,
mice, fat sleeps tail, stewed puppies,
puma, baked elephants trunk and
feet, ostrich eggs, ants stewed in but
ter. caterpillars, roasted spiders, snails
eight inches long) and odd articles
not generally regarded as food are
consumed.
Experience can alone reveal the Sc
cret of the Esquimaux's love for
nice greasy, yielding tallow candle,
and of the lingering sweetness long
drawn out" as he pulls the wick gently
between his teeth, go as not to lose
one particle of its flavor.
Porpoise meat was once favorite
dish with the old English nobility, at
least 80 runs the story, which declares
the proper sauce to have been COM
pounded OF sugar, vinegar and bread
crumbs.
In Central America the stately
curasson and the sober guam, both
large birds, are diligently hunted as
table delicacies, yet the first named
biped must not be eaten by the
hunters dog, for it will assuredly
poison it.
The Japanese are fond of flying
fox. The dessert of the Chinese
middle classes consists OF melon pips,
the scarlet and yellow varieties being
grown solely for their seed.-[Chicago